Looking for a Sky map fro July in Central Australia

[smithcorp]

Hi all - a friend is hiking in Central Australia in July and I want to send her a simple to use sky map so she can make some sense of the amazing skies she will see out there.

However, I can't find one ahead of time. http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html has a June map for the southern hemisphere - reckon that would be suitable?

[Wavytone]

Check the site in a couple of weeks for the July map.

Since the earth completes an orbit round the sun in 12 months, everything shifts westwards by 2 hours each month. Hence the map for early June at 8pm will also be correct for early July at 6pm, aside from the phenomena like moonrise/set, moon phases and the planetary phenomena which are specific to each month. Even there, from the June map you'll be able to figure out which planet is which.

If friend is carrying a smartphone and possibly binoculars I'd suggest they acquire a copy of Sky Safari, it's well worth spending some time lying on the ground looking up.

[smithcorp]

Thanks

[bojan]

Try Stellarium for mob...

[AnakChan]

Despite getting back into astronomy 3 years back, I still find it hard to use digital devices - I was going to recommend just the Philips Planisphere and Wil Tirion map.

[OzEclipse]

Looking for a Sky map fro July in Central Australia
Hi all - a friend is hiking in Central Australia in July and I want to send her a simple to use sky map so she can make some sense of the amazing skies she will see out there.

However, I can't find one ahead of time. http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html has a June map for the southern hemisphere - reckon that would be suitable?


The night sky as seen at a given time of night moves 360 degrees over one year and also 360 degrees over 23h56m. So the shift is 2 hrs per month. That means that a June map for 10pm is the same as a July Map for 8pm.

Heavens above is what you want. All available online, you don't have to install anything on your computer and you can set it to make a sky chart for any date and time of day. You can even format the chart with/without constellation figures / boundaries etc. This link below includes coodinates for Alice Springs. I'm guessing she is probably doing the West McDonald ranges walk. If she is anywhere in the Alice Springs, McDonald Ranges, Uluru region this should be ok. If she is radcally further, re-enter new lat/long using the location box top right.

http://www.heavens-above.com/skychart2.aspx?lat=-23.7082&lng=133.8842&loc=Alice+Springs&alt=582&tz=UCTm9colon30